I was shocked when Rob told me to call the telemarketer back.
I always thought he didn’t like dancing, so when I got the call from a local ballroom dance studio offering a free trial lesson, I just chuckled wistfully and hung up.
Turns out it’s not that Rob doesn’t like dancing; it’s that he doesn’t like not dancing well. He spent a good part of his early adulthood working throughout the Caribbean where dancing is an art form and people seem born with a beautiful sense of rhythm. His travels left him a little ashamed of his typically rhythmically-challenged, white, northern-European background and loathe to take to the dance floor.
But lucky for both of us, he was ready to learn.
I was five months pregnant when we showed up for our first lesson. We bickered bitterly over his imperative to lead and my apparent inability to let him, but were nonetheless hooked. Before we left we signed up for several more classes.
Dance class became our date night and all that summer and fall my stomach grew as did our competence at the Foxtrot, the Cha-Cha, and the Waltz.
We deliberately chose to learn older dances—those choreographed odes to compromise and propriety—because we discovered that we both felt they were classic, old-fashioned arts in danger of being forgotten or passed over for the sweaty, sexy gyrating that dominates dance floors today.
One of my earliest and happiest memories involves dancing with my father. I was about six years old and wearing black, patent-leather shoes that caused me to slip and slide most ungracefully as he expertly lead me through the Jitter-Bug, the Cha-Cha, and the Waltz.
I remember feeling simultaneously like a glamorous grown-up and an incompetent little girl as he twirled me about and I tried, and mostly failed, to keep pace. I remember feeling exhilarated and happy and proud, aware that people were watching and smiling at the spectacle.
And then I remember retiring to my seat and watching my dad take my mother’s hand and lead her through the same steps. It was as if they had been dancing together forever. One day, I thought, I want to dance with somebody like that.
